Why is this a blogue?

Why is this a blogue, not a blog?
It’s just an old-fashioned touch that harkens back to less-hurried (and harried) times, when a letter took a while to get delivered, and a reply took a while longer. When books were savored for their precious rarity. When news came in slowly for the most part and could be thoughtfully considered. A rapid-fire flow of constant info-junk tends to make me twitchy. When you visit my blogue, I invite you to take a nice deep breath, absorb things a little at a time, wander in a serendipitous fashion, and generally remember that even in the ultra-speedy world of the Internet, you control the pace of your life.

August 12, 2007

Ebb and Flow: Shekhinah Mountainwater

Shekhinah Mountainwater died yesterday at 2:30 pm, quietly, in the company of her loving Goddess-sisters and her family. She had been battling cancer for some years, and she was ready to depart. I’ve been typing and deleting for quite a while, struggling to say the right thing here — not a eulogy, just a remembrance.

Shekhinah was one of my first teachers in Goddess spirituality. We lived very near each other in the 1980s and our paths crossed in some way that I can’t remember now. I began to study with her, one on one, and we worked together for several years, as sisters and as friends. Much of what I’ve integrated into my everyday spirituality had its roots with Shekhinah. She shared her own style of magic, lore, symbology, ritual, her own utterly unique way of perceiving women’s spirituality. She recognized me as a sister-priestess from the beginning, and she was impatient for me to take vows, to formally surrender my life to the Goddess’s service, which I knew I would do when the time was right. One vital turn of my serendipitous path was facilitated by Shekhinah, for she introduced me to Carol She-Bear, who had started a little magazine called SageWoman, and who was about to close it down. I bought it from her, to Shekhinah’s delight, and moved into the next phase of my Goddess service.

I remember Beltane celebrations with Shekhinah, just the two of us, crowned in tiny pink roses, drinking wine in which strawberries and raspberries floated. I remember many tarot readings, Shekhinah unrolling her worn tarot cloth on the floor between us and spreading out her handmade round tarot cards, telling me to “stir” them and then to draw forth cards one by one. I remember making rune stones with her, smelling the magical oils and incenses she made, ringing the little bell on her altar as I made my offering. I remember every study session beginning with her Rainbow Cone meditation, both of us toning the “Maaaaa” chant higher and higher, visualizing swirling colors rising around our bodies, and then the profound vibrating hush that followed. Prayers spoken into this rainbow-sparkling silence will be with me always: “I am one with thee, Goddess, and thou art one with me….”

I remember driving Shekhinah and Merlin Stone up to the Bay Area for a dinner party that was included in the film Goddess Remembered. I was still fairly new to the Goddess community then, and I sat enthralled listening to Starhawk, Luisah Teish, Charlene Spretnak, Hallie Iglehart, and others whose work I had read and so admired. I felt so proud that my friend and teacher was included among these luminaries. After the filming, Shekhinah and I comforted a weeping Starhawk, who was upset because the film makers had only wanted to hear from the “stars,” while the rest of us were on the periphery, off-camera. This was so contrary to what these two women felt about the Goddess movement, about sisterhood, about fighting patriarchal values.

Shekhinah’s personal mythos was always about this struggle, always pitted against the oppressive patriarchy, always feeling excluded, pushed aside, unheard, unacknowledged. She wanted to change the world, and it saddened her that the world tends to change rather slowly. Shekhinah always lived on the cutting edge, and that’s a sharp and uncomfortable place to dwell. I don’t know if she ever really took in how many women honored and appreciated her work. I hope she felt it in her last days, at least. When Shekhinah was happy, her smile and her merry cackle were irresistible. Nothing made her more blissful than singing, sharing her music and her poetry with others. When you chant “We are the flow, we are the ebb, we are the weavers, we are the web,” you are singing Shekhinah’s words. Send her your thanks and your blessing.

I gave Shekhinah my own thanks and blessing when I said goodbye to her on Thursday. I rang the little altar bell for the last time and lit one final candle. I wrote of that visit at the time, and you can read that account here, if you like. Today I will go down to the ocean with a fallen apple I took away from Shekhinah’s garden — once so lush and wild with roses and herbs, now sad and neglected, but her beloved apple tree was still bearing fruit. I will offer the apple to Aphrodite and envision Shekhinah in the arms of the Goddess she loved so passionately. I will say these words of Shekhinah’s, from her book Ariadne’s Thread:

Comments

Shekhinah also wrote one of my circle's favorite chants: "Make for yourself a power spot, Bring you a spoon and a cookin' pot -- Bring air, bring fire, bring water, bring earth . . . And you a new universe will birth . . ." Blessed be, Shekhinah.

It is so good to hear the thoughts in my heart echoed in your words. I too met Shekhinah in the late seventies and eighties. Her way of raising the rainbow cone and chanting MAA has been with me all my life. Throughout my life I have found it hard to find others to circle with who also followed her ways of trancework. People would say they were "Between the worlds" when they really weren't there. Shekhinah would guide us to really go to that place. She always directed us to set aside ordinary talk in ritual and to only speak in poetry, dance, and music.

I am sad that I was out of touch and didn't get to say goodbye to my teacher. I am glad to know that people realize what an amazing priestess she was and how humbly she dedicated her life to the goddess. Blessed be, Devora

Very beautiful thoughts and memories. They bring to mind my early days of finding women's spirituality and the names of the "stars" I admired from afar. We are all connected. We are not alone. We are WomanSpirit. Blessed be.

Thanks so very much Lunea. I will always treasure what Shekinah means to me, even when I never knew her. Your words brought weeping from my soul. I just don't understand why I am so attached to this wonderful woman. She lives on for sure. Thanks again, Vesta Storm

Tarot Card of the Week

Moon

When the planet turns its face toward the dark, our nocturnal nature draws us out into the realm of Moon. This is a dominion of dreams that we explore with our senses fully awake. The subconscious spills into consciousness, allowing us to see what is not revealed by sight alone. Strange sounds come to our ears, intoxicating perfumes reach our noses, things appear that only emerge in darkness. We creep softly, following our moonshadows over the colorless world.This card is Moon, from my Mystical Cats Tarot, illustrated by Mickie Mueller. Click the image for a larger version.